220 TIPPERARY ADDRESS. [CHAP. VIII. I should have expected that there had been a wisdom and faith in some quarter of another country, that would have prevented such catastrophe; but I know it is no proof of that wisdom to take the taxes, to continue the abuses, damp the zeal, and dash away the affection of so important a member of the empire as the people of Ireland; and when this country came forward, cordial and confident, with the offering of her treasure and blood, and resolute to stand or fall with the British nation,-it is, I say, no proof of wisdom nor generosity to select that moment to plant a dagger in her heart. But whatsoever shall be the event, I will adhere to her interests to the last moment of my life. HENRY GRATTAN. ADDRESS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF THE COUNTY OF TIPPERARY, 20TH MARCH, 1795. To the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. SIR,-If services to Ireland are to be deemed crimes,— if a life devoted to the successful assertion of the dignity and independence of his native country, excites the suspicion and distrust of those who seem desirous to convert an imperial kingdom into a dependent province; the patriot who enjoys the confidence, and has earned the gratitude of millions, will find in the consciousness of his own integrity the best reward of his virtues, and the firmest support of his measures, in the unanimous concurrence and approbation of every class of the people. The baleful breach of narrow and bigoted politicians may check, but cannot destroy the blossoms of our just expectations whilst you live; and we think we cannot despair that freedom-constitutional freedom, will extend, and must be imparted to all Irishmen. You, Sir, have our confidence; and whilst we have formed the most sanguine expectations from your unshaken virtue, and most brilliant talents, we feel at the same time an honest pride by our attachment to the constitution, and by our long-tried loyalty, to have entitled ourselves to your approbation and support. (Signed) by order, THOMAS LANIGAN, Chairman. MR. GRATTAN'S ANSWER. GENTLEMEN,-I thank you for the confidence you are CHAP. VIII.] MR. GRATTAN'S ANSWER. 221 pleased to repose in me, and for the choice of the time in which you are pleased to express it. To have incurred the displeasure of a powerful quarter, is to me no new misfortune. If I wanted consolation, I have it in my own conviction, in your confidence, and in the approbation of my country. The justice of your cause; your attachment to His Majesty; your desire to preserve and cultivate a connexion with Great Britain; the firm but dutiful tone with which you apply for privileges, and now the interposition of your Protestant brethren in your favour, must ultimately secure your success. The tranquillity observed at this present interesting moment, in places, too, where so many rumours to the contrary were so confidently circulated, is an argument that the Catholics are too much in earnest to be tumultuary, and that they seek, through the peace of the country, the privileges of the constitution. The most adverse to your cause, (save the few who are always adverse to the people,) will at last see the propriety of your claims; they will surrender their prejudices to their patriotism, and, receiving you as fellow subjects and fellow-freemen, will in the end give an honest victory to their intellect and their understanding. In common with the rest of their country, I lament that by the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, your expectations of redress should have received so great a discouragement; but I shall despond, indeed, if the departure of his Excellency was to be followed by the restoration of the old system of government and its advisers. If restored to their power, I have said, they would extinguish their country; after mature deliberation, I feel myself obliged to repeat the expression in its fullest ex tent. It is on the same due consideration I must again repeat another part of a former answer, where I have the honour to express my entire concurrence with those who have remonstrated to the throne against the restoration of that destructive and degrading system of Government. Committed as I feel myself to support to the utmost of my poor abilities, my countrymen and their just efforts, and to share the unjust resentments to which such efforts may expose them, I have the honour to be your very humble servant, HENRY GRATTAN. 222 GALWAY ADDRESS. [CHAP. VIII. ADDRESS OF THE GENTLEMEN AND FREEHOLDERS OF THE COUNTY OF GALWAY. To the Right Honourable Henry Grattan. SIR, We lament with you, but we condole with the empire, that some malignant influence has caused you to retreat from your ministerial situation; we lament that you have lost power, inasmuch as we deplore that the active influence of virtue is diminished. As patriots, we hailed the auspicious inaugurations of virtue and talent in the Irish Cabinet; as patriots, we lament it is suspended. While you could influence, we had no doubt but that we should be united into one people, by the removal of every civil distinction arising from religious difference of opinion, and that thereby we should deserve the name of a nation. Sir, it is highly honourable to your nature, although not to the age we live in, that your dismission was supposed a necessary and previous step to the return of some that are not reputed to love the people. CHARLES BLAKE, High Sheriff. MR. GRATTAN'S ANSWER. GENTLEMEN,—In or out of confidence, with or without a share of power, in all the changes of political life, I am attached to your interests for ever. Ministers every hour may precipitate, but the country is a fixed light, and in that luminary I shall never want an object to serve and to contemplate. The late Lord Lieutenant, who so wisely and mildly administered this country, was pleased to honour me with a certain share of his confidence. I feel myself particularly happy when the choice of the purest mind is confirmed by the approbation of my country. In your address to me, so kind and so honourable, you much over-rate my talents. I hope you do not over-rate my principles; but whatever they are, talents or principles, they are at the service of the public. Nor do I know of any question more a part of that service, than the one you so justly recommend-the emancipation of the Catholics. Those who may succeed to direct the councils of this country, could not have a prouder opportunity, nor do I know of any legacy to bequeath them more valuable, than CHAP. VIII.] UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' address. 223 the power of giving freedom to such a portion of their fellow-subjects. I would accompany that bequest with a parting prayer, "That whoever shall be your ministers, they may exceed their predecessors in talents, and rival them in patriotism; and, above all, that they may avoid the dreadful system of abuses and grievances, of tyranny and plunder, that formerly blemished the government of their country." To exercise the functions of a minister, it is necessary to have the confidence of the Sovereign; but there is another qualification for the minister of a free country, not less indispensable than the choice of the King-it is, love of the people!! Gentlemen, I have the honour to be, with the greatest esteem, your most humble servant, HENRY GRATTAN. THE ADDRESS OF THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY TO MR. GRATTAN. SIR, We, the students of the University of Dublin, entering with the warmest sympathy into the universal feeling and interest of our countrymen, beg leave to unite our voice with theirs in declaring our admiration of your great and uncommon talents, and a reliance on your steady patriotism and unshaken integrity. We have with sorrow beheld the removal of a beloved Viceroy, whose arrival we regarded as the promise of public reform, and his presence the pledge of general tranquillity. If this event should be accompanied (as we have reason to apprehend) by your removal from His Majesty's councils in this nation, our regret will have received the last additional circumstance of aggravation, and our despondency will be complete. Relying, however, on the wisdom. and benignity of His Majesty, we yet entertain a hope that the nation will not be deprived of the salutary measures flowing from your councils and advice, and that the harmony and strength of Ireland will be founded on the solid basis of Catholic Emancipation, and the reform of those grievances which have inflamed public indignation. We therefore entreat you to persevere in exerting the full energy of your splendid talents for the attainment of those objects which the present alarming posture of affairs, and the consenting wishes of the nation so loudly demand. THOMAS MOORE, Chairman. 224 ANSWER TO STUDENTS' ADDRESS. [CHAP. VIII. MR. GRATTAN'S ANSWER. INGENUOUS YOUNG MEN; For this effusion of the heart, I owe you more than ordinary gratitude, and am proud to sympathize in your native, honest, and unadulterated impressions. I receive your address as the offering of a young year-a better garland than the artificial honours of a court; it is the work of disinterested hands, and the present of uncontaminated hearts. May that ardour which glows in your breasts long exist, and may the sentiments which you breathe long prevail; they are founded in principle, enlightened by letters, and supported by spirit. The subjects which you mention I recommend, I feel, and pursue. I lament the recall of a patriot Viceroy. Assisted by men much abler than myself, the reform of that system you condemn I shall not fail to attempt; bound, as I now am, to the rising, as well as the passing age, and happy, as I shall be, to go on in the service of both, I join in your fullest wishes for the Catholics; and I feel the important service which you now render them, by marking in their favour the sentiments of the rising generation; doing, at the same time, so much honour to yourselves, when you give, I had almost said, your first vote in favour of your country. I am bound to your University by every tie of affection and duty. The sentiments of your address give me a new and just opportunity of saying to her, through you— "Esto perpetua, thou seat of science, and mother of virtue !" I am, with the sincerest regard, your most humble servant, HENRY GRATTAN. 9th April, 1795. In late as well as in early times the Irish aristocracy have attached themselves too much to party in England, and have forgotten the real interests of their own nation. The wiser policy would have been to have attended exclusively to their own country,-a course more patriotic, though less profitable. In the present case, the Irish opposition committed a great mistake in joining the Duke of Portland, who was a very weak, not a very sincere man, possessed of no power |
